Michael Rocco Wins 1st WSOP Bracelet in $10K 6-Max Championship

Michael Rocco is finally a WSOP bracelet winner after emerging victorious in Event #94: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed Championship at the 2024 World Series of Poker. Rocco defeated the 502-entrant field, and denied defending champion Alexandre Reard of back-to-back WSOP bracelets to win the $924,922 first-place prize. 

This WSOP has been full of close calls for Rocco as he opened the series with a third-place finish in the $25K No-Limit Hold'em High Roller for $639,620 and followed that with a seventh-place finish in the $10K Big O Championship for $83,359. Rocco then added another third-place finish in the $10K Super Turbo Bounty for $282,983 before an eighth-place finish in the $10K Stud Hi-Lo Championship for $38,589. However, Rocco finally avenged all those close calls by breaking through to win his first WSOP bracelet in one of the toughest events of the series.

With this victory, Rocco now has amassed more than $7 million in live tournament earnings, according to The Hendon Mob. This win also propels him to 11th on the United States All-Time Money List, but most importantly, he is now the new number on the PGT leaderboard with 1,835 PGT points, having knocked off Jesse Lonis who held the top spot for just a handful of days following his second-place finish in the $50,000 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller to Jared Bleznick.

The final PGT-qualifying event of the 2024 World Series of Poker attracted a total of 502 entrants and created a prize pool of $4,668,600 that paid the final 76 players. Those finishing in the money included Ben Yu, Leon Sturm, Sergi Reixach, Jonathan Jaffe, Daniel Sepiol, Scott Ball, Punnat Punsri, Jonathan Little, Alex Livingston, Koray Aldemir, Joe McKeehen, Joao Simao, Viktor Blom, and Eric Baldwin on the way to the final table being set late on Monday evening. 

After eliminating Fahredin Mustafov in seventh-place, defending champion Alexandre Reard entered the official final table holding the chip lead. Moldova's Egor Procop exited in sixth when his pocket tens ran into the pocket jacks of Aleks Dimitrov before Adrian Mateos fell next when his pocket nines were outdrawn by Reard's ace-nine. Rocco doubled through Reard twice before Aram Zobian was eliminated in fourth-place when his ace-six couldn't improve against the pocket tens of Reard.

Rocco continued to close the gap on Reard as Dimitrov exited in third when he was all-in on the turn with an inferior two-pair against Reard. Reard entered heads-up play with a two-to-one chip lead over Rocco, but the American quickly chipped away and then found a double with pocket sevens against pocket eights when all the money went in preflop and Rocco found a seven on the flop. The final hand came shortly after when Reard was all-in on the turn with two pair. Rocco had him covered, but held the inferior hand of bottom two pair. The cards were in Rocco's favor as he improved on the river with a full house to win Event #94 and deny Reard the elusive chance of going back-to-back.

2024 WSOP Event #94: $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em 6-Handed Championship Results

Following his victory, Rocco moves to the top of the PGT leaderboard with 1,835 PGT points from his seven cashes during the season. Alexandre Reard moves into 43rd place with 642 PGT points and two cashes for the season. Third-place finisher Aleks Dimitrov sits 76th overall with 434 PGT points, while fourth-place finisher Aram Zobian is now fifth overall with 1,413 PGT points, two wins, and 12 cashes for the season. Adrian Mateos sits 20th overall with 907 PGT points, while Egor Procop is 204th overall. 

PGT Leaderboard Top 10 

These are the leaderboard standings as of Tuesday, July 16, 2024. The complete and current PGT leaderboard is at pgt.com/leaderboard.

The next set of PGT-qualifying events will be the Super High Roller Bowl Series, running from August 17-25, 2024, at the Onyx Club at Merit Royal Cyprus. Following that will be a full calendar of events on the back half of the PGT schedule, including the Poker Masters slated for September, the PGT PLO Series, and Super High Roller Bowl: $100K Pot-Limit Omaha, scheduled for October.

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